Offender gets 14 months for failing to update address
Published 9:33 am Wednesday, June 25, 2014
An Austin man convicted for sexually molesting a woman in 2012 was sentenced to 14 months in prison Monday after he twice failed to register his address with police per his sex offender requirements.
Randal Jerome Bennett, 48, was given credit for 106 days spent in the Mower County jail.
According to a court complaint, the victim told police she rode her bike to a party at Bennett’s house on May 16, 2012, and had a few beers. Bennett locked the doors and would not let the victim leave after everybody else had left. The victim added that Bennett’s children, however, were home at the time.
The woman claimed Bennett picked her up, threw her on a bed and had sex with her. When police asked Bennett who was at his house that night, he initially did not mention the victim, according to the complaint. However, police asked him again and Bennett mentioned that the victim was there and the two had consensual sex. Police photographed bruises on the victim’s thigh, shin and forehead, the complaint adds.
Bennett was sentenced to five years’ supervised probation for gross misdemeanor criminal sexual conduct in May 2013. He failed to provide a new address to police when he moved out of his old home in November and told police he was “basically homeless,” according to court complaints. He also failed to provide his address again in January.